Research on Work as a Calling…and How to Make It Matter

Thompson, Jeff. E.; Bunderson, J. Stuart

doi:10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012218-015140

Cited by 151 publications

(298 citation statements)

References 96 publications

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“…Conceptualizations of calling can be distinguished using Maslow's (1967) distinction between inner-requiredness and outerrequiredness (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). The measure we used- Bunderson and Thompson's (2009) (SD = 9.55), and 46% were male.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many who participate in the workforce are experiencing pressure to attain a calling-like experience. Conversations about whether a sense of calling precedes or follows career choices is a topic of great angst, especially among the millennial generation (Chen, Ellsworth, & Schwarz, 2015;Thompson & Bunderson, 2019), and this conversation seems to permeate virtually all job contexts and to extend across racial and gender lines. If, by finding a sense of calling, employees are able to cultivate a robust sense of job satisfaction, then cultivating a sense of calling could meaningfully improve employee morale and well-being.…”

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This represents one of the first efforts to position calling as a cognitive lens that interacts with other predictors to inform employee attitudes (cf., Duffy, Douglass, Autin, England, & Dik, 2016). By examining how calling interacts with work-family conflict and enrichment, this study begins to address the concern that the current literature has examined calling in relative isolation to other predictors of employee attitudes (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). In addition, whereas extant calling literature loosely implicates the work-family interface via rich qualitative investigations of prototypically meaningful occupations (Kreiner et al, 2009;Oelberger, 2018), the present study quantitatively examines calling and the work-family interface across many occupations, lending a higher level of generalizability to our findings.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface: Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

et al. 2020

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Summary This research seeks for improved understanding regarding the interaction of meaningful work and the work–family interface. Existing literature suggests that experiencing a sense of calling toward work makes the work domain particularly salient to employees compared to other life domains. In this article, we draw on this idea, rooted in identity theory, to hypothesize that a sense of calling toward work diminishes the effects of work–family conflict and work–family enrichment on employee's job and life satisfaction. We test these ideas in two studies. First, we surveyed an alumni sample of 598 employees from various jobs, industries, and job levels. Then, in a constructive replication, we surveyed 327 employees using a time‐lagged design. Calling was found to significantly buffer the effect of work–family conflict on job satisfaction in Study 2, but not Study 1. Calling did not buffer the effect of conflict on life satisfaction in either study. However, both studies demonstrated that calling attenuated (substituted for) the effect of work–family enrichment on job satisfaction. Study 1 supported the idea that calling attenuates the effect of enrichment on life satisfaction; however, this interactive effect was reversed in Study 2, contrary to expectations. We discuss implications for theory and practice related to callings and career choices, as well as for the role of calling and work identity in the work–family interface.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Practical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface: Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

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“…Calling. There is currently no agreement on the core components of calling (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). Hence, we employed the most comprehensive measure of calling that is currently available: The Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS; Vianello et al, 2018).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Developmental Trajectories of Calling: Predictors and Outcomes

Vianello

Galliani

Rosa

et al. 2019

Journal of Career Assessment

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There are many open questions concerning the development of calling, and longitudinal empirical evidence is limited. We know that a calling is associated with many beneficial outcomes, but we do not know how it changes through time and what predicts these changes. Previous studies have shown that calling is relatively stable at the sample level. We show that, at the individual level, calling shows huge variations through time. We identified nine developmental trajectories that are typical across facets of calling, and we found evidence that the development of a calling is fostered by the extent to which individuals have lived it out. We also observed that the more a calling has grown over a 2-year period, the more it is lived out during the third year. These results provide support for a developmental model of calling according to which having a calling and living it out reciprocally influence each other. The practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

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“…Although research on the relationship between calling and work-related outcomes has been covered in previous literature (Duffy et al, 2018;Thompson and Bunderson, 2019), this study responds to recent calls for a more in-depth analysis of specific dependent variables that are exceptionally sensitive to differences in an employee's sense of a calling (Thompson and Bunderson, 2019), such as job crafting. Job crafting is a positive behavior taken by employees themselves in order to face the challenges and opportunities brought about by their work (Berg et al, 2010b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

How Having a Calling Leads to Job Crafting: A Moderated Mediation Model

2020

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This study examines the association between calling and crafting behavior by proposing a moderated mediation model. Drawing from the job crafting perspective and selfdetermination theory (SDT), career commitment is identified as the mediator, and occupational self-efficacy and job autonomy are identified as the moderators in the model, respectively. The authors tested the proposed relationships with an SPSS macro that utilizes a sample of 338 employees in a three-wave procedure. Results support all the hypotheses. The findings reveal calling to be significantly associated with employees' job crafting behavior. Such a process begins with one's career commitment and is strengthened by the level of occupational self-efficacy in the first stage as well as the level of job autonomy in the second stage, thus yielding a pattern of moderated mediation. These findings answer recent calls for an integrative examination of calling in the workplace by demonstrating that career commitment along with occupational self-efficacy and job autonomy represent key mechanisms in transferring one's calling into job crafting behavior. As such, this study complements existing literature on the theoretical and practical implications of calling.

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Research on Work as a Calling…and How to Make It Matter

Cited by 151 publications

References 96 publications

The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface: Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface: Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

The Developmental Trajectories of Calling: Predictors and Outcomes

How Having a Calling Leads to Job Crafting: A Moderated Mediation Model

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